Trying Out A Little Something New
by jojotier
Summary: Dave tries on a dress.


_I wrote this back when I thought I was cis and man. Man. As someone who's nonbinary, how the turn tables_

* * *

So, Dave really was doing this, huh. God, if only Bro could see him now.

Honestly, it was probably a damn good thing that Bro wasn't here to see this. He barely got away with the Disney shit that just sort of happened, what with the crows all flocking in his room and all like he just happened to be the weirdest Rapunzel that ever was seen, and if Bro had known that this girly shit had gone beyond just having a few birds come in and giving himself some ear piercings, he'd probably have his ass beaten back in time a few calendar years. He could forget about just staying up in his cozy little tower, because he would be ass deep in horses from some stupid outdated calendar that served as a stupid metaphor and outdated reference. But right then, this Rapunzel had been free from his tower for about two years and his captor was basically dust underneath the surface of LOHAC, so why the hell was Dave getting so fucking skittish about this?

It wasn't like it was anything bad. He knew it wasn't anything bad, and he would get acceptance and blah blah blah, it would all end in the most anime fashion with the protagonist and his friends all in an emotional group hug over how not-fucked up this was. But really, it was so fucking weird, because to him it felt wrong. Guys weren't supposed to do girly shit like this; it was best left to cute girls like Jade or fashionistas like Kanaya, not some boy from Texas who needed to get his shit together and stop subtly cringing at the word "boy". It was just a word, three letters long and not that fucking scary, describing what junk he was born with.

And yet it was fucking weird to be called a boy. It wasn't like he was a girl- he looked that up, he wasn't trans or anything- but being labeled as a boy or girl really sort of fucked with him a little bit. It was just some weird feeling in his gut, almost rivaling that of the inane fucking dread that seemed to have wormed its way in there as well, reminding him that he looked fucking stupid, just standing in the hallway of their one way ticket to figuring out What The Fuck Was Happening Next and staring at the metal door, shifting from foot to foot and staring at the barrier in front of him as if the moment his shades were off he would go full X-Men and shoot a goddamn hole through the thing. If anyone were to walk down that hallway right now, they would probably wonder what the fuck was his deal and he would have to play it off, saying something about needing something he didn't actually need before chickening out and getting the hell out of dodge faster than a trident could be thrown through the air.

Dave wasn't about to let himself be spooked out of doing this, not after he had worked up the nerve to do it. Besides, it would have been easy. All he had to do was get in there, tell Kanaya what he wanted, and wait for the work to be finished. Maybe he would have to suffer through his ecto-sister's psychoanalysis on why the fuck he so suddenly wanted a dress, of all things, but if he could ignore her on the worst of days when he wasn't able to deal with anyone without wanting to tear his hair out, then he could deal with it.

So without further ado, without thinking about it anymore (though he was thinking about it more, in the back of his head, in the part that still sort of looked around for Bro in the shadows just in case they had unwittingly entered a dreambubble and his ghost was there), he pushed open the door and started speaking so that he wouldn't lose any of his nerve and end up hiding in his room for all of fucking eternity. "Kanaya, sweetheart, dearest future sister-in-law, I hope you don't mind doing me a little favor. I mean I know my sister's neck is about tempting this time of evening- or is it morning? You know what, who the fuck knows, time has no meaning here. I mean, we're in an endless vacuum of void in between the fabrics of space-time and are currently moving at god knows what speed trying to get away from a giant green skull monster straight from Sailor Moon so that we can defeat that same green skull monster when we all reunite and have the power of love or friendship or whatever the fuck on our sides, so why the hell would we need to care about trivial things like existence and whether a clock is ticking- which, by the way, they aren't."He took a breath, and Kanaya looked at him, raising an eyebrow. In that inane ramble, she seemed to not have any fucking clue what he was saying.

"David, as much as I love to listen to you rant on about metaphors and tangents that make no sense, what the fuck are you talking about?"

"Can I have a dress?"

The troll blinked for a moment, and Dave was almost afraid that he would be scoffed at, told that he was being fucking ridiculous and that she was going to add that to the list of flaws about him that made him a fucking weirdo, but the troll simply smiled, head tilting a bit in confusion. "Well, why didn't you just say that in the first place? If it's a dress that you want, then it should be easy enough. I might have it done within the hour, even, if you don't mind me modifying one of my own dress for your sake." It probably wouldn't have been hard- Kanaya was literally a fucking giantess among them, a little over six feet and a height that he was reminded of whenever she stood next to her much shorter matesprit. Rose was a pretty short girl in the first place- next to Kanaya? She may as well have looked like one of the seven dwarfs. Her dresses were long as hell, basically, and with the seeming nonexistence of a would probably fit up to Dave's flat chest as well.

"Yeah man, that'd be great. Honestly, the quicker it is the better, you know? Gotta have my adoring fans able to see my perfection, you know." Kanaya simply rolled her eyes and got up, moving to one of the corners of her room, which seemed to be perpetually covered in fabric and pillows, and getting a long red dress. Dave honestly was just hoping that no one else would come in- if he was in and out, able to run with the dress in his sylladex where no one could see so that he could hide with his new acquisition, that would be fucking great.

But of course Rose had to slither herself into the room as Kanaya was approaching Dave with yellow measuring tape. Kanaya looked down to the human nearly a foot shorter than her and bent down a bit so that Rose could reach up and kiss her cheek, though the Seer had to go up on tiptoe to do it. Then Rose was looking straight at Dave as Kanaya was reaching down to wrap the yellow plastic around his hips. Well motherfucker. Dave tried to play it cool, of course, though he could feel the tips of his ears going beet red. Rose was the one to ask, with a tone of voice that was exceedingly amused, "Well, what do we have here? Are you trying to acquire a new suit for yourself, my dearest brother?" Again with that brother dearest crap. He was about to open his mouth and make a smartass comment, when Kanaya completely ruined his plans.

"Actually, Dave came to me looking for a dress. You can imagine my delight- I've yet to design much of anything for him, and I must admit, I do prefer designing dresses more than anything else."

Rose raised an eyebrow, looking to Dave. Her expression shifted from one of amusement to bemusement, regarding him with that calculating look that she always had whenever she got any new information that would make his life a living hell the next time she appeared and had an impromptu therapy session to basically roast his ass to hell and back. That probably really wasn't the thing that was happening,or the thing that Rose intended, but it sure as hell felt that way to Dave. He didn't like being vulnerable, much less liked being put on the stop. But instead of the snarky comment that he expected, the little scoff, he simply got a shrug in return, and a sly smile at Kanaya. "Well, when you're done, I would love to see it on him. You know I love nothing more than to see your work." Then she was moving to a small pile of pillows in the corner of the room, settling down and taking a book from her sylladex to read.

Kanaya was soon done taking his measurements, and she was pushing him out,nudging him and telling him that he would need to be back in about an hour. She didn't want the surprise of the dress to be ruined, after all, and it wasn't as if Dave hadn't seen all of Kanaya's dresses at one point or another. After about a few months, it became obvious that Kanaya's wardrobe only had so many choices, as expansive as those were, and she eventually began just wearing the favorite ones of hers.

So now, what the hell was Dave supposed to do for an hour?

That ended up being his thoughts for most of the hour, which he spent sulking about and trying to pass the time while simultaneously avoiding everyone else. Vriska and Terezi and Gamzee were easy enough to avoid- Vriska and Terezi were always together, and Gamzee was too preoccupied with whatever he did in the vents- but Karkat was harder to shake off. The two had begun to become close, and Dave still wasn't sure how the hell he was even able to get away from the guy most days, since he seemed to always want to try something or another with him. Maybe the guy was just trying to stave off loneliness and was able to cope with it more effectively than Dave. It sure as hell seemed that way whenever he happened to try and think of it.

But of course, the hour soon passed, and he was back inside of Kanaya's room, being shoved behind a screen with the dress while Kanaya took Rose off to do whatever they would do while they waited for him to just go get the damned thing on. He had to stare for a moment, though, because he was really doing this. He was really contemplating putting on the damned piece of red fabric, even though he was a boy (that's what he was born as, right?) who shouldn't have wanted to. It was too late to go back on it now, though, and Kanaya had already made the thing. So now Dave Eli Strider, the coolest goddamn human to ever grace the face of paradox space (except not really), was put in the unique position of having to work up his courage over this damn piece of fabric. If Bro saw him now, he wouldn't have only had his ass kicked- he might have just been thrown off of the damn building, because for gods sake,he was supposed to be a Strider, fierce and chill, not some fop in a dress.

It took a long moment of overthinking and criticizing himself, but eventually, he ended up stripping himself and putting the thing on. For a moment he stood stock still behind the screen, as if the dress would come alive and bite his ass before devouring him. On his gravestone it would say "Here lies Dave Strider, the greatest pansy of them all". "Sir, how did Mr. Strider die?" "Why son, he put on a dress and it burned him to death." No wait, shit, that wasn't fitting with the metaphor. Fuck, it seemed that his thoughts were so jumbled up that he couldn't even keep his analogies straight. After a moment, when nothing happened, he eventually moved a bit. The fabric was honestly... pretty comfortable. It was light, pretty sheer too, and when he looked back behind him he was almost mesmerized by how the fabric seemed to float in the air for a moment, before fluttering down to the ground. He remembered then that Rose and Kanaya were out there waiting for him to get out and show them the dress, and he swallowed thickly.

Kanaya hadn't seemed too weirded out by the idea of him in a dress, so surely if she was there,then Rose would hold her tongue and not say anything about how fucking stupid he must have looked? It was the tiniest bit reassuring, even if it did little to lessen his nerves. Dave took a deep breath then, shaking his head. He was a Strider. He had faced down monsters twenty times his size and traveled through time on his own- what did he have to be afraid of here? Besides, it wasn't as if this was wrong- he was just a person in a dress. Just about anyone could pull off a dress, probably.

Finally, Dave walked out from behind the screen, and Kanaya looked on in satisfaction, with a smile beaming like her steadily glowing face. Rose looked at him for a moment, before standing up, approaching him with some sort of... look, on her face. For a moment, there was the feeling of dread, squirming in his gut like a colony of butterflies being digested all at once, before she took his hand and tugged on it, smiling a bit. "Dave, honestly, would you please just look at yourself?" He let himself be led (it was mostly dragging really, because Dave was trudging behind and dragging his feet due to this sort of weird feeling in his stomach, some little thought that he wasn't going to like what he saw worming into his head.

When he finally was in the proximity of the mirror, he was able to really look at himself, and he stared for a moment.

Was that really him? It was a weird thought, because of course, that must have been him, but at the same time, he looked like he didn't expect it. The dress really was beautiful, flaring out just the slightest bit at his hips into that diaphanous display stopping at his ankles, the whole thing being held up by spaghetti straps that, unbelievably, complimented his shoulders. It was sort of like when he got into those suits, that feeling of being cool, but just... better, somehow.

"See Dave? There really was nothing to worry about. You look gorgeous."

Rose had said this, smiling even a bit smugly as Kanaya joined them, standing on Dave's other side and towering over the two of them, hands intertwined at her front as she smiled proudly at her own work. "That dress really does look lovely on you. I wonder, why haven't I seen you wear one before? They really suit you."

"Huh." So, this was really happening. He was actually enjoying this- being in a dress and looking pretty. This was honestly better than he had imagined, and Dave could honestly feel some of that earlier dread dissipating, just a bit. Of course, there was still a little bit of it there- that little niggling sense of wrongness, of how this should have been something forbidden for him because for a male things like dresses shouldn't have been comfortable. But really, when he was looking at himself in the mirror like this, with his body looking so flattered in something for the first time in a long time, it was sort of hard not to feel that hey, this was right. Why should he have to care about what to wear? Of course, he wouldn't be wearing them all the time- he still was barely sure what to do in this one. But hey, if was a start.

"You know, I might just start wearing them in the future."


End file.
